Red Gold

It's been a long break since my last blog. So I think it's only appropriate I talk about something new. I was reading a recent article in the Economist about "the New Oil Spill." It talked about the adverse effects of massive palm oil plantations on the environment. Case-in-point was Malaysia, the world's biggest producer of palm oil.
Palm oil, a crop native to West Africa, was found to grow in Malaysia in the early 1900s. Since then, palm oil has become one of the main agricultural exports of Malaysia.
I read more on the subject and found out about the Ghana Oil Palm Development Corporation (GOPDC) and the work being done by the Belgian group, Siat, in Ghana.
It's amazing how little attention this sector of the economy is getting.
The potential of using palm oil as a renewable source of biofuel has already been realized by companies like Neste Oil of Finland, which plans to produce 800,000 tonnes of biodiesel per year using Malaysian palm oil. Their proprietary NExBTL is a next-generation biofuel that contains 90% palm oil.
Countries like Brazil have used corn ethanol to diversify their energy portfolio, requiring 25% ethanol content in all car fuels since 2007. Brazilian flex-fuel cars are capable of running on 100% ethanol (E100) and accounted for 92% of cars sold in Brazil last year.
In the next few blogs, I'll explore the idea of building a biofuel industry around oil palm in a developing economy like Ghana's.